The present invention relates to fluid dispersal devices or the like, and, more particularly, to such a device of simple and inexpensive construction which requires relatively low fluid pressures to establish various meaningful spray patterns.
Until recently, in order to achieve spray patterns of different desired configurations, one merely shaped an orifice accordingly. Thus, a jet flow could be achieved from a simple small round aperture; a sheet flow could be achieved from a linear aperture; swirl nozzles could be used to effect conical spray patterns etc. This nozzle shaping approach is simple and inexpensive but the resulting nozzles generally require relatively high applied fluid pressures in order to produce useful spray patterns.
A considerable advance in fluid dispersal devices is described in Stouffer et al Patent 4,052,002 wherein a low pressure (on the order of 0.1 psi) fluidic oscillator is disclosed which issues a transversely oscillating fluid jet which, because of the oscillation, distributes itself in a fan shape pattern residing in a plane. The interaction of a liquid jet with ambient air results in the jet breaking up in droplets of uniform size and distribution along the fan width. Other approaches to fluid dispersal nozzles are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,638,866 (Walker), U.S. Pat. No. 3,423,026 (Carpenter) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,911,858 (Goodwin).